Article 4 HMO's in Nottingham - Planning Permission Explained

HMO Licencing in Nottingham: complicated, complex and can be a total headache however it doesn’t need to be. In this blog,

I will talk you through the key things that YOU need to know if you’re looking to do HMO’s in the Nottingham city boundaries.

What is Article 4?

HMO Article 4 directions are a legal means through which a council can require property owners to obtain planning permission when converting single homes or residential properties (C3 use class) into HMOs (C4 use class).

If you have three or more unrelated people in Nottingham city boundary, then yes, you will require a HMO licence.

How do I know if a house is covered under Article 4?

Check the postcode of the property and use https://www.gov.uk/find-local-council to find out the local authority for that area.

On the local authority website, you can look for article 4 directions or planning permissions e.g. this is the planning permission website for Nottingham city council: https://publicaccess.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/online-applications/

Key Things to Remember

• You can apply for planning permission to turn a normal family home into a HMO if it is in an Article 4 area however it’s extremely unlikely that your planning application will be approved. This is why, I would strongly recommend to my clients and people that I work with; to purchase a property outside of the article 4 areas and convert that into a HMO of up to six people as no planning application will be required.
• Some areas outside of Article 4 still have really strong rental demands and I have personally created HMO’s outside of article 4 areas that perform extremely well.
• The other way to get into HMO’s in Nottingham is to purchase existing HMO’s however you need to make sure that the HMO has a planning document called a ‘certificate of lawfulness’, if it falls under the article 4 boundary. You’ll need this in case you ever want to remortgage, sell or if there are any questions around the legalities around this HMO, you have the documentation to prove it.
• You can apply for the certificate of lawfulness via the planning department of Nottingham City Council – try and have this in place before completing on the property.